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Tuesday, 23 April 2013

Seven Times the Darkness Coupled with a Splash of Vengeance

Seems like there's something new everyday at the moment with Star Trek Into Darkness.

Now some of you might have already seen one or two of these images around your local bus-stop but did you know that the shady image of Kirk or Spock is part of a series of seven that are being released as part of the lead up to Star Trek Into Darkness?

For those of you who've missed them, here are all seven (above) in one bite-size piccie. These look great, very arty and featuring Sulu, Uhura, Spock, McCoy, Kirk, Harrison and in her first promo shot, Alice Eve's Carol Marcus. Interesting that they're mainly going for the phaser-totting action pose which would have been massively out of place in the Roddenberry universe wouldn't you say? Still pushing that action-adventure theme to the limit...

But, d'you notice any glaring omissions? Like Chekov and Scotty?! In fact on my last piece in regards to the trailers and the onslaught of the marketing campaign these two have been badly underused. Are they going to get any time to shine or were they just AWOL the days when Paramount did all its photocalls for the movie? Also absent so far from any form of marketing material save one photo which was featured in Empire magazine is Scotty's little engineering pal, Keenser played by Tiny Ron. Now I'm not his biggest fan, period. In fact he's the one thing that grated against me when I watched the 2009 reboot. I pray that he's not Star Trek's answer to Jar Jar Binks because I felt he was verging on that in the first movie. Note to JJ - don't make Scotty too much of a comedy character this time because it didn't do Simon Pegg justice as an actor.

Photo from Empire Magazine

While we're all in super-hyped mode, think about this one - the premiere of Star Trek Into Darkness has happened - the world premiere. There are now people in Australia who have seen this film in 2D and 3D. The internet is about to become awash with spoilers and I will be avoiding them like the plague. I will however try and keep up to date with decent teaser info and the like so as not to ruin any of the surprise for any of us who want to get the full first-time-viewing experience. I had even considered going on a Star Trek Into Darkness ban for the next 15 days to keep away from any spoilers, information or anything to do with the movie but then I remembered I wanted to read the Star Trek magazine special out in May and...yep, that plan lasted for about ten seconds. If there is anyone who is doing a self-imposed ban, how's it going? Managed to avoid all influences? When the previous films were out it seemed easy to do but with the internet explosion it's been a bit of a nightmare. You can't move without some kind of reference hitting you smack in the face.

Oh and today we also got our first proper shot of that Dreadnought-class behemoth called the USS Vengeance. Will Harrison have his vengeance?! Certainly if he's getting to use this for as long as he wants. Looks a bit Lego-y if you ask me but I'm not sure I'd be saying that if it was bearing down on me with all weapons armed and ready. If Shinzon's Schimitar was a predator I'd hate to fathom what you'd class this as...It's a beast, no doubt, and I can't wait to see her in action. This is like nothing we've seen before - a cross of multiple designs and then some painted in stealth black. From this angle it's more evident there are certainly influences of the Enterprise B, C, D and E all in there. I'm liking the cutaway saucer design around the bridge - something very radical for Star Trek there. I suspect a lot of fun was had coming up with this starship and there's something very reminiscent of the stealth planes/helicopters/boats that we have nowadays and backs up the secret agent world that surrounds John Harrison. So what do you think of her now we've had a closer and less fuzzy look? Good? Bad? What I also didn't appreciate was that Star Trek: Vengeance was originally considered as the title for the film or that if you see the Russian version of the movie that IS what it's called!

Anyway. No doubt I'll be back on soon with some more up to the minute news on the movie. Until then, I'm going back under that very comfy looking rock...